Things Said and Left Unsaid
by paisley is a kind of pattern
Summary: A quick sketch featuring a character from "The Harper's Sons", ten years later. Ransom, now a full harper, is called back to the Harper Hall to begin teaching. On the road, he and his apprentice have a bit of an adventure.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Pern, but these characters are mine :)

This is a little sketch that takes place ten turns after my story "The Harper's Sons." The image of a 25 year old Ransom popped into my head for some reason and wouldn't leave until I had written this.

Anyways, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the story!

* * *

Ransom woke early on the day of his departure from Ruatha River Hold. He rolled over in the semi-darkness, Evina still in bed beside him. She lay on her side with her back to him. Her dark hair tangled over their pillow and the sheet slipped down her bare, freckled arm. The cadence of her breathing told him she was awake, as did the tension in her shoulders.

He brushed a springy curl behind her ear and kissed her neck. "Evi, you awake?"

She hunched a protective shoulder over her neck and pushed him gently away. "No. It's not morning yet. Go back to sleep."

"I still haven't packed."

"I didn't wash your tunics."

"We're not married yet. I should do my own laundry." Ransom walked his fingers up her arm, drawing lines between her freckles as if drawing pictures in the stars on a clear night by the riverbank. He wanted her to turn to him, smile, tease him and call him hopeless. Instead, her arm tightened against her body and she curled into a ball. He sighed, letting his hand rest against her smooth skin.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I wish I didn't have to go. Not now."

"It's not your fault," she said in a small voice.

He waited, propped up on one elbow, but she remained turned away. He bent over and kissed her cheek. "I love you. It'll only be a few weeks."

She nodded and tucked an arm beneath her pillow. Ransom swung his legs out of bed and began pulling on his trousers. His small room was a disaster, instrument cases leaning haphazardly against the walls, scores and clothes lying in jumbled heaps around the floor. Traces of Evina popped up here and there like lilies in the river shallows—a vase of wilting blooms on the windowsill, a silly drawing in the margin of his wax tablet, her small shoes at the foot of his bed. In a few hours everything would be gone, packed for his journey or passed on to the next Harper inheriting his post.

"Where are my boots?" he said, bending down to peer under the bed.

"The cat peed on them, so I put them outside. I meant to tell you, but you were already asleep."

"How long were you awake after me?"

Evina finally looked at him then, purple crescents darkening the skin beneath her eyes. "I don't think I slept."

"Evi," he began, kneeling on the bed and reaching for her.

"Don't fuss over me," she said, turning on her side again. "You should pack. I don't want you worrying about me."

Ransom blew out his breath and straightened up. He knew pressing his concern would only drive her deeper into her shell. "I'll be quiet, so you can rest."

"Would you sing?"

Ransom smiled at the back of her head. "Gladly."

Pale sunlight was filtering through the high eastern window when the sharp knock sounded on Ransom's door. He straightened the last stack of scores for the next Harper and pulled a folding screen in front of the bed where Evina was finally sleeping. His bare feet made no sound as he padded to the door.

Hundar stood on the front step, holding up Ransom's boots. "You'll be needing these." Behind him, Melory waited with a full rucksack slung over her shoulder, her long fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against her thighs.

Ransom took his boots with a self-deprecating smile. "Thank you, Hundar."

The stablemaster gave him his sternest frown. "Hope you aren't missing anything else."

"I have my hands and my drum. What more can a Harper need?" Ransom grinned and winked at Melory. "It was a joke, Hundar," he said after a stilted pause.

"There's nothing funny about a thirteen-turned girl trekking to the Harper Hall with no one but you as an escort," the stablemaster said severely. He shook his grizzled head. "I'll bring the runners around."

Ransom watched him go. The bowlegged man had the sense of humor of a termite-ridden log and about as much charm. "Sorry, Mel," Ransom said to his waiting apprentice. "I'll be right out."

He tiptoed across his now clean floor and pushed the screen back. Evina was sitting up in bed. She had put on her nightdress and was fiddling with the ends of her dark hair.

"Is it time?" she asked.

Ransom nodded, his throat suddenly tight. He climbed onto the mattress and folded her in his arms. She let him hold her for a moment. Her thin fingers slid around his face.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I wish I could go with you now."

"It's just a few weeks," he replied into her hair. "I'll have time to settle in, grow a full beard, and then you'll come and we'll be together again. Everything will be all right."

"A beard? Even your stubble is patchy."

"A man can dream, can't he?"

"Only if he shaves it off afterward." She tugged on a tuft of his hair, a hint of a smile flickering around her mouth. It made him ache to see the shadow of her former self. He kissed her and she slipped back into her protective ball.

_I love you,_ she signed with one hand, using the language he and his deaf brother had invented as children. Ransom pressed her fingers to his lips and stood.

Hundar was waiting outside in the courtyard, holding the reins of two runnerbeasts when Ransom emerged from his quarters for the last time, his tambour and pipes across his back, his rucksack full of clothes and wax tablets in his hand.

"Your saddlebags been packed with enough provisions to get you to all the way to Fort. Endling's midway. You can stop there to sleep in a real bed," Hundar said. "Plan on riding barefoot?"

"Oh." Long summers of walking along rocky shorelines had toughened Ransom's soles so he forgot when he wasn't wearing shoes. He shoved his feet into his boots, hoping the cat hadn't marked the inside of the leather as well.

The expression Hundar wore as he passed the reins to Ransom was that of a man seriously doubting the wisdom of this decision. Ransom put on his most responsible smile and began securing his belongings to the back of the runner's saddle. A few Hold folk had gathered around the edges of the courtyard to see them go, though Ransom and Melory had already said their goodbyes the previous evening. Ransom mounted his beast and took a last look around the small Hold that had been his home for three Turns, the Ruathan banners emblazoned with wavy sapphire lines for the river, the low-lying cotholds lining the delta, the blue line of the ocean on the horizon.

"Ready?" he asked Melory. She was already astride a placid-looking roan mare.

She shrugged a skinny shoulder. "For the Harper Hall, yes. For four days of riding and saddle sores, no."

"Saddle sores? What about the romance of the open road? Sleeping under the stars?"

Melory wrinkled her nose. "I like my roofs."

"So Pernese. Thread stopped falling when you were barely out of nappies and you still don't like open spaces?"

"The sooner we go, the sooner we'll be safe in a Hold again."

Ransom shook his head. "No sense of adventure. That'll be the first thing to remedy, young Mel." He nudged his runner gently forward and they clopped out the Hold gate.

As the sun climbed in the sky on their left, Ransom wished he were riding the opposite way. If he had to leave, he'd rather go north to Ruatha, where his brother was a Master draughtsman at the Weaver Crafthall. Ransom hadn't seen Roe and his wife Layla since their second was born, a boy with his father's bright eyes and his mother's wild hair. Instead, Ransom was being summoned to the Harper Hall to teach and advance to the rank of Drum Master, towing young Melory along to begin an official apprenticeship.

For all Melory's apprehensions about traveling, she was nearly bursting from excitement, peppering Ransom with endless questions as they rode. What was the Harper Hall like? Were there many female apprentices? Would the Masters make her play pipes even though she hated them?

"And I'll meet your father," she said in an awed voice. "What is he like?"

"Dull, stodgy, and about as charming as a puddle of mud."

Melory frowned. "But he's the Masterharper."

Ransom disguised a chuckle as a cough. He sometimes forgot about Melory's inability to understand sarcasm. "I'm not at all like him, of course," he said.

They rode along the shore for most of the morning, turning inland to the scrubby woods when the terrain grew too rocky for the runners. Their course took them father west, their old lives receding in the distance with every stride. Other than the odd break to walk alongside the runners and stretch their legs, Ransom and Melory rode at a steady pace until late afternoon as the light turned gold and long shadows trailed their every step. They stopped to make camp in a wooded grove near the foothills.

Melory nearly toppled from her runner as she tried to dismount. She slid awkwardly to the ground and hobbled over the roots of a gnarled tree. "Why did we decide to ride all the way?" she groaned.

"It was faster than waiting for a trade caravan," Ransom replied. He tethered his and Melory's runners to the tree and began unbuckling their gear. "I thought you liked runnerbeasts."

"Their pretty to look at, but none too kind on my backside." She lowered herself to a sitting position with a low groan. "I haven't had such a tender bum since the last time my da caught me in a lie."

"Tomorrow we can go slower if you wish." He tossed her an empty bucket and their canteens. "Make yourself useful and fetch some water from that stream we passed."

Melory's groans and grumbles receded through the crackling underbrush and Ransom turned his attention back to the placid mare. Her flank was warm and smooth, powerful muscles shifting beneath her short coat of hair. She whickered at him, as if chastising him for his inattention. Ransom lifted her saddle off and rubbed down her sides.

He first learned to ride from Evina. She was the stablemaster's daughter and he a young harper at his second post, already bored and itching for a new experience. His first time on a runner was a quick affair, ending with him flat on his face in the mud. Evina had run to him in concern, her skirt hiked up above her knees. It was only after she saw he was unhurt that she began laughing, peals of relief and hilarity shaking her whole body. He fell in love with her then, as she helped him up and wiped mud from his face with her sleeve. A Turn after she followed him to Ruatha River Hold, he asked her to be his wife. It had been far too long since he last heard Evina laugh.

Once the runnerbeasts were rubbed down, Melory watered them while Ransom built a fire and prepared a simple meal. They ate in the warm glow of their campfire as darkness gathered around them, the harper casually drilling the apprentice in musical notation and theory. She rattled off the answers to his questions with the ease of long practice. It had become a game of theirs during the long winter nights on the coast.

Ransom cut an extra knob of cheese for Melory despite her protests. "You're too skinny," he said sternly. "I'd mistake you for a drumstick if you turned sideways."

"You sound like my mother," she grumbled, picking at her food with her fingernails.

"Good. She made me promise to take care of you." He wrapped up the rest of the cheese and tucked it away in his saddlebag.

"When will you and Evina be married?" Melory asked suddenly, her cheese forgotten on her knee.

Ransom's fingers slipped on the saddlebag ties. "After she joins me at the Harper Hall."

"Will she be well enough to travel?"

"She's not ill anymore. She just needs more time."

Melory sighed. "I was hoping you'd be married before we left. I won't know anyone if you get married at the Harper Hall."

Ransom's mouth tilted in a sideways smile. "If I get married at the Harper Hall, you'll actually enjoy it because you won't have to play the entire time. Go get your gitar. We'll have an hour or two of practice before bed." Their careless words echoed in his mind as Melory slid her instrument from its leather case. _If_ he got married…

Evi was coming. She only needed more time.

He reached over the saddlebag for his tambour case.


	2. Chapter 2

Soft whickering woke Ransom from a light sleep. The embers of the fire still glowed beneath a thick blanket of ash. Across the way, Melory snored softly on her bed roll, her hands tucked beneath her head. He guessed it was an hour or two after midnight, from the height of the moon in the dark sky.

The runners neighed again, a hoof stamping dully into the ground. Ransom sat up, all his senses alert as he squinted through the dark. A shadow moved in the thicket behind the runners and Ransom heard the chink of metal on metal.

"Who's there?" He rolled to his feet, belt knife in hand, and padded towards the runners. The night rustled with activity around him, breezes soughing through the treetops, rodents' tiny feet skittering through the forest loam.

The runnerbeasts were fidgeting in agitation as he approached, switching their tails and tossing their heads. Ransom grabbed his mare's tether and whispered in a calming voice. She snorted at him and stamped a hoof. Next to her stood Melory's placid runner. Ransom reached for her tether as well and grasped only air. He looked down; the rope lay on the ground by his feet, its end jagged and frayed as if it were cut with a dull blade.

He heard the footfall behind him an instant before the blow fell. A thick branch thwacked into the back of his skull. His vision blackened and his head rang like a brass gong. He stumbled to his hands and knees, his belt knife disappearing in the undergrowth. It had been Turns since the last time he took a hard hit to the head, and a long moment passed before he recovered. His mare was neighing and stamping in alarm. He thought he heard the thunder of hoof beats.

He staggered to his feet with an angry yell, clutching his throbbing head. Melory's mare stood calmly in the trees a hundred feet away, the severed rope dangling from her tether. A shadowed figure rose unsteadily from the ground between them. The thief took one look at Ransom and ran.

"Hey! Get back here!" Ransom charged after him, his head ringing with every step.

The thief sprinted towards Melory's mare. He got one leg over the mare's back, scrabbling to sit up. Ransom grabbed his other knee and hauled. The thief let out a shrill yelp and tumbled down onto Ransom, flailing like a madman. They rolled through the undergrowth, snapping twigs and getting jabbed by rocks.

After a brief tussle, Ransom gained the upper hand, straddling the thief with one hand around his throat. The thief gasped and gagged, scrabbling at Ransom's fingers.

"Enough," Ransom growled, trapping one of the thief's thin wrists. "You can breathe perfectly fine. I'm not throttling you yet."

The thief's pulse raced wildly beneath Ransom's thumb. He thrashed his pinioned arm in a fruitless attempt to free himself. "Let me go!" he yelled.

"First, tell me who you are and why you were stealing my runner," Ransom said.

It was too dark to see the thief's face, but Ransom thought he heard him choke back a sob. "Please," he gasped. "They'll kill me if they catch me. You have to let me go!"

"Who are you running from?" Ransom pressed sternly. "And why do they want to kill you?"

"Please! I—it's my husband. He-he'll kill me because I ran away!"

"Your husband?" Ransom let go of the thief's wrist and neck, his eyes darting automatically to her chest. "You're a woman?"

The would-be thief dragged air into her lungs and coughed. "Yes, you stupid bastard," she snapped. "Now will you get off me?"

Ransom shot to his feet as if he had sat on a burning ember. The woman rolled onto her side with a groan. He could see now the curves of her figure beneath her rough boy's clothes. Her hair was cropped close to her head, masking the feminine features of her face. She got slowly to one knee, clutching her midsection.

Ransom pulled her upright. "You nearly stove my head in and tried to steal my runner. I believe you owe me an explanation."

"Get your hands off me!" she hissed, yanking her arm free. "I don't owe you anything!" Her right leg buckled beneath her as soon as she stepped away and she tumbled to the ground, clutching her knee and releasing a string of colorful curses—a couple of which Ransom tucked away for future use. "I'm dead," she whispered through gritted teeth. "He's bound to catch me now."

"What's wrong?" Ransom knelt beside her as her attempt to get up again only ended in more teary oaths.

"Why the hell do you care?" she snapped, shrinking away. She cradled her bent knee, her ragged breaths speeding up in panic.

Ransom folded his hands. "How far behind you is this so called husband of yours?"

"Not far enough," the woman growled, edging away from him.

"How far?"

For a moment, she bristled defiantly, then her shoulders slumped in defeat. "An hour, maybe two."

"We don't have much time then. Come on, I'll help you back to my campsite so we can take a look at that leg."

She stared at him, at the hand he held out to her. "You're helping me? Why?"

"Because I'm a meddlesome harper who can't stay out of other people's business. Now are you coming or what?"

Still guarded, the woman slowly took his hand. He helped her upright and wrapped her arm around his shoulders.

"Ransom?" Melory stepped from their campsite, clutching her belt knife in front of her. "Are you all right?"

"Everything's under control now," he replied. "Your mare got loose. Would you bring her back and tie a new tether?" The runner still waited where they had left her, undisturbed by their scuffle.

"Who's that?" Melory asked.

"You have a name?" Ransom asked the woman.

"Caden. Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Ransom. That's my apprentice, Melory."

"What's going on?" Melory sidestepped towards her runner, eyeing them nervously.

"Caden will be our guest for a little while, Mel. I'll take care of her. No need to worry." Ransom half-carried Caden over the uneven ground to their abandoned bed rolls. Her arm was tense around his neck and she hissed softly every few steps. He helped her sit beside the remains of their fire. She stretched out her good leg and eyed him warily as he dug through his saddlebag.

"You must be thirsty," he said, holding out his canteen. Her eyes were dark with uncertainty as she raised her gaze to his. Moonlight slanted across her face, illuminating the ugly bruise on her temple, the blood crusted along her hairline. Ransom's gut tightened. "We have bread and meat as well, if you're hungry."

"I can't run on a full stomach," she retorted, but she took the canteen anyway and gulped thirstily.

"We'll have to see if you can run at all. Can you straighten your leg?"

She shook her head. "My knee is dislocated. It's happened before."

"How?"

She dropped her eyes and shadows swallowed her face. "My husband."

"Is that what happened to your face as well?"

"Enough of an explanation for you?"

Ransom didn't reply, beckoning Melory over instead as she finished securing her runnerbeast's tether. "Will you get the fire going again?"

"No!" Caden hissed, grabbing at Ransom's shoulder. "He'll see it if he's close, and he'll find me."

Ransom pried Caden's fingers from his shirt as Melory stared wide-eyed from across the fire. "You're safe with us," he said. "We'll take you to Endling Hold and they'll give you asylum."

Caden shook her head vehemently. "You don't know Thale. He'll catch up with us and kill you for getting in his way."

"I doubt any man would go so far as to kill two innocent people for helping his wife. Unless the wife did more than just run away."

The slap caught him off guard, leaving his cheek stinging.

"How dare you insinuate—!"

Ransom caught her wrist before she could hit him again. "I know nothing about you except that you're desperate and willing to stoop to violence and thievery. Yes, I'm insinuating that your hands aren't as clean as you make them out to be, but I also want to help you. I can't do that unless I know the whole story."

Caden wrenched her hand free and folded her arms across her chest. "I've done nothing to deserve how my husband's treated me."

"I didn't say you did."

"What is going on?" Melory chimed in impatiently. "Do you want me to light the fire or not?"

"Forgive us, Mel. Would you do that?"

"No!"

Ransom held Caden in her seat. "I can't fix your knee in the dark. I've dealt with my share of wrenched limbs, but I'm no healer."

Melory uncovered the embers and blew them gently to an orange glow, feeding them bits of kindling until they flared to life. The yellow flames reflected in Caden's large eyes and cast haggard shadows across her face.

"May I?" Ransom asked, motioning towards her leg. She glared at him and rolled up her trousers.

Caden made no sound as Ransom popped her kneecap back into place. Her hands tightened on the hem of her shirt and she dug her teeth into her lip. Ransom pulled a roll of bandages from his saddlebag and wrapped Caden's leg securely, looping up and around her swollen knee.

"How does that feel?" Ransom asked as he tied off the brace.

Caden nodded wordlessly.

"This is for your face." He dampened a clean cloth and handed it to her.

She lifted it slowly to her forehead. "Why are you helping me?"

"You seem like you need it."

Her eyes, glimmering with moisture beneath her wounded forehead, met his. "You'd make a good husband," she whispered.

Startled, he stared at her until she looked away. "I hope so," he said finally.

She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Have you ever loved someone so much you thought you'd die if you lost them?"

Ransom nodded after a moment, the memory of Evina lying pale and still in his arms springing unbidden to mind. He couldn't trust his voice to stay steady.

"Where is she?"

"At home."

"Alive?"

"Yes."

Caden let out a choked sound, like a sob masquerading as a laugh. "I wish I could say the same for my son."

Ransom felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. _Me too,_ he wanted to say, but he couldn't speak past the grief squeezing his throat.

Caden rubbed her arms as if struck by a sudden chill. "Sometimes I wonder if I didn't love him enough. He's gone, yet I'm still here. If I loved him enough, wouldn't that keep him with me? Or send me to him?" She started to shake, breathing as if she had run ten miles.

"No," Ransom said, touching her arm gently. "Love can't save or take life, but it's what makes it worthwhile."

His touch jolted her back to the present. She rubbed her eyes and straightened up, maudlin confessions banished. "Will you give me your runner?"

Ransom let out his breath, the sudden switch in conversation throwing him adrift. He shook his head to regain his bearings. "It's not mine to give. But you're welcome to ride with us to Endling. We'll start at first light."

"I can't wait that long." Caden slowly straightened her leg, testing it out.

Ransom doubted she'd last over a mile on her knee, but he didn't say it. "Where are you going?"

Caden didn't answer. She went stiff, staring into the woods beyond Ransom's shoulder. He turned. The yellow lights of torches bobbed in the distance. Faint voices carried through the night air.

Caden swore, the blood draining from her face. "He can't have found me so fast!" The bay of a hunting hound answered her disbelief. "We have to run!" She hauled herself upright, wincing as she tried to put weight on her injured leg.

"Wait." Ransom stood and steadied her as she wobbled, his mind racing. Despite his doubts, the evidence on Caden's face was undeniable. And the small glimpse she had given into her life struck him through his core. He couldn't let her fall into her husband's hands. "Mel, saddle your runner, quickly."

Caden's fingers clamped onto his forearms. "You're giving me a runner?"

"You'll ride ahead with Melory. I'll catch up once I deal with Thale."

"What are you going to do?" Caden's eyes were wide with fright.

"Talk to him. Dissuade him from following us."

"No, he'll kill you."

Her earnest tone sparked a twinge of doubt in Ransom's mind. "I'll be fine," he assured her. The torches were coming closer, words becoming intelligible.

Mel led her saddled up runner into the camp. "What's going to happen, Ransom?"

Ransom hoisted her into the saddle. "Caden will ride with you. Take her to safety. I'll follow later with the rest of our gear." He gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. "You know how to find your way south at night?"

Melory nodded, her face pale. "Keep the Sisters on my left."

"Good." Ransom gave a Caden a leg up, settling her behind his apprentice. "I'll catch up to you at Endling, if not before."

"Are we in danger?" Melory asked in a thin voice.

"You won't be if you ride fast. I'm sorry to put you in this situation, Mel."

"Don't get hurt, Ransom!"

"I won't. Now go."

Melory urged her runner forward and they took off through the trees. Ransom felt for his belt knife, then remembered he had lost it when Caden brained him. He hadn't enough time to gear up his runner and follow. He stepped to the edge of their campsite and watched the torches approach. There were two, illuminating the way for what looked like three men. "Who's out there?" he called. "I'm a traveling harper and I mean you no harm."

"Ho, harper!" a man's voice answered him. "What keeps you awake at this late hour?

"I could ask you the same question."

The men came to a stop a dragonslength away. The tallest held a straining hound back by its leash. A narrow-shouldered man stepped forward, holding his torch to the side. "I'm searching for my wife," he said in an unexpectedly weary voice. "Have you seen her? Short brown hair, medium height, thin. It's been nearly a day since she ran off."

"Why did she run away?" Ransom asked, keeping his tone neutral. He was unarmed against three men. This was not a time to throw words around willy-nilly.

"Frankly, Harper, that's none of your concern," Thale said coldly. The men on either side of him exchanged glances.

"Her scent trail is going straight towards his campsite," said the man holding the hound's lead.

Ransom stepped forward with his hands out in a nonthreatening gesture. He needed to buy Caden and Melory more time. "Yes, I've seen the woman you described," he said, "but I think it's in everyone's best interest if you gave up your search and went home."

"What?" Thale balled his hands into fists. One of his companions quickly gripped his shoulder. "Who do you think you are?"

"Your wife is safe and that is all you need to know."

"Like hell!" Thale shook off his friend and thrust his face into Ransom's. "Where is she? What have you done with her?"

"Thale!" The shorter of his companions hauled him backwards. "Keep a hold of yourself. Harper, we won't disturb you further. Just let us through your camp so we can follow her trail."

Ransom stood his ground. "I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

Thale snatched the hound's lead from his companion and shoved past Ransom into the circle of firelight. The hound scampered ahead. After a moment, it began circling the same spot on the ground, whining and snuffling into the dirt. Thale swore as he realized it had lost the scent. Ransom's exhalation of relief was cut short as the other man whirled and slammed a fist into his jaw. Ransom staggered, the bones in his neck and face throbbing.

"Shells, Thale!" The other men jumped on him, restraining his arms.

"Where is she!" Thale yelled. "Where is Cadya!"

"Cadya?" Ransom choked out as he regained his balance. "Don't you mean Caden?"

"I think I know the name of my own wife!"

"Caden?" said the taller of Thale's friends.

"I knew it," the shorter man muttered. "Thale, you have to tell him."

"Tell me what?" Ransom asked warily, straightening up and keeping the fire between him and the other men.

Thale twisted free from his friends' grasp. He glared at Ransom for a moment, then raked a hand through his hair with a low sigh. "My wife—Cadya—is not well. She suffers from paranoid delusions."

"What?" Ransom frowned. "Are you saying she's mad?"

"No!" Thale made to step forwards, but his friend gripped his arm in warning. "No," he repeated in a measured voice. "But she gets confused. I have to find her before she can hurt herself or someone else."

Ransom's mind struggled to take in the new information. "How do I know you're telling the truth?" he said. "You just attacked me."

"For all I know, you could be a holdless murderer," Thale snapped. "What would a real harper be doing awake in the woods in the middle of the night?"

"What else did she tell you?" the shorter man asked, cutting off Thale's tirade.

Ransom rubbed his sore jaw. "She told me you would kill her if you caught her." Caden—Cadya was delusional? He thought back to her bruised face, confession, and earnest fear, trying to remember any hint of instability. What could he believe? Who could he believe?

The other man nodded solemnly. "That's typical of her episodes."

"Then who hit her?" Ransom demanded. "It looked like someone had already made an attempt on her life."

"She's hurt?" Thale snatched up the torch from where he had dropped it by the fire. "How badly? Which way did she go?" The anger had bled from his voice, leaving only panicked concern.

Ransom's heart began to thud anxiously against his ribs. Had he been terribly wrong? "I sent her ahead on a runnerbeast. She's with my apprentice, headed to Endling Hold."

Thale's face went white in the torchlight. "She's not alone?"

"No. Why? She's not dangerous, is she?"

Thale swore. "Do you have another runner? We have to find them now."

"Tell me, is she dangerous?" Ransom repeated, his turn to round on the other man.

Thale let out a shaky breath. "The last time she was like this, she nearly killed our son."


	3. Chapter 3

"Nearly killed? What did she do to him?" Ransom hissed, throwing his saddle onto his runnerbeast and fumbling with the buckles. It took all his effort to keep his voice low so as not to spook the beast.

"That is not your concern!"

"There's an innocent, thirteen-turned girl out there with Cad—your wife! I think knowing what she's capable of doing is very much my concern."

Thale inhaled and clenched his hands into fists. "Cadya nearly strangled him," he said bleakly. "She thought he was already dead."

Ransom paused in the middle of strapping their instruments and saddlebags into place. "I'm sorry," he said. "But your son is alive?"

Thale nodded. "I don't think she'd hurt the girl," he replied, sounding less than convinced.

"Let's hope you're right." Ransom tightened the last strap and swung up into the saddle. "I'll ride ahead and try to catch them. If I find them, I'll double back."

Thale stopped him with a hand on the reins. "Let me ride with you. You may need my help." Behind him, his companions were getting the hound to latch onto the first runnerbeast's scent.

"The two of us will be too heavy. We won't catch them that way."

Thale's mouth tightened into an unhappy line. After a moment, he handed over the reins. "Please don't hurt her," he said. "She doesn't know what she's doing."

"I won't," Ransom replied. He kicked his runner forward, leaving the circle of firelight behind.

Ransom looked up past the treetops, finding the bright dots of the Dawn Sisters in the east. He turned the runner south, splashing across a trickle of water. Melory had a good head on her shoulders. The girl would have followed the stream south. The runner found a good path along the stream bank and Ransom gave it its head, bending close to its neck to duck any low tree branches in the dark.

He tried not to imagine what Caden could do to Melory, isolated in the trees. He kicked himself for letting his apprentice go on alone with a strange woman. He had promised to take care of Melory. But how could he have known? He rode faster. They were only a few minutes ahead. He should catch them soon.

He couldn't help wondering what had happened to Caden's son. Was he alive after all? His insides twisted with sadness, remembering her tears. To believe a son dead when he was really alive. Ransom urged his runner on faster. He and Evina had done the opposite.

For hours he had paced outside the room where Evina travailed, hearing only her cries and the midwife's shouts to push and breathe. The moment finally came, when her bellows reached their loudest and gave out, answered by her attendants' triumphal exclamations. But there was no following cry of new life giving voice for the first time. Instead, the shouts of celebration died to low murmurs of alarm.

Ransom held his son only once before he was buried. The child was unmarked and perfect, with a mop of his father's unruly hair, but still as stone. No music of life sang through his lungs or moved his heart to beat like a tiny drum. He was born dead, without explanation as to how or why, his life fading before he even tasted air. Soon after, Evina sickened. Ransom was only just getting her back when he had to leave.

The stream curved sharply east and Ransom slowed his runner to a walk as the path disappeared into rocky terrain rising up through the trees. "Melory!" he called. They were doubly laden, on Melory's slow-blooded runner. He should have caught them by now. "Mel!"

He passed by a leafless bush on the crest of the hill, broken ends of branches shining white in the darkness. He pulled his runner to a stop and dismounted. Half the bush was crumpled, as if it had broken someone's fall. The sap oozing from the splintered wood was still wet.

"Melory!"

"Ransom?" Melory's voice was faint, coming from a distance.

Ransom shot to his feet, his eyes searching the dark trees. "Mel! Where are you?"

"Down the embankment. I'm—I'm stuck."

Ransom scrambled to the edge of the hill and peered down the steep slope. Melory's face was a pale smudge looking up at him against the dark scree displaced by her fall. A dead branch jutting out from the gravel had stopped her downward slide a few feet from another drop off.

"Are you all right?" he called down to her.

"My leg is hurt," she answered. Gravel skittered out from beneath her and she froze, clinging to the branch.

"Where's Caden?"

"I don't know. I thought she fell off too. She took my knife. Ransom, I'm scared." Her voice wavered, pinched and thin.

"Don't worry, I'm coming to get you. You'll be all right!" There had to be a rope in their saddlebags. Ransom turned around as his runner let out a high whinny of alarm. The gray mare kicked her front legs and tossed her head as a thin figure grabbed for her reins.

"Oh, not again," Ransom groaned. "Caden—Cadya!"

At the sound of her real name, Cadya's head snapped towards him. "No!" she screamed. "Get away from me!"

The mare, spooked, took off. Reins wrapped tightly around her hand, Cadya was yanked off her feet, hitting the rocky ground with a dull thud. Ransom swore and ran to her still form. Why were all the women getting hurt under his watch?

"Cadya, are you all right?" He dropped to one knee beside her. She sprang up with a snarl, swiping at him with Melory's knife. He ducked her wild slashes and grabbed her wrist. "Stop it Cadya! I'm trying to help you!"

She scratched at his face, teeth bared in a snarl. "How do you know my name! My husband sent you, didn't he? He sent you to kill me!" She was surprisingly strong and Ransom was having a difficult time holding her. Her wide eyes stared at him, frighteningly lucid in the furious grimace of her face. "He wants me dead because he thinks I killed our son!"

Ransom twisted her hand until she dropped the knife. He kicked it away and pulled her into a headlock. "Cadya, your son's alive."

"You're lying!" she shrieked, writhing wildly against his grip.

"And your husband loves you," Ransom continued. "He would never hurt you."

Cadya suddenly went slack against him. "He'll kill me," she wept. "He should kill me." She lifted to him a face streaked with tears.

Ransom adjusted his arms to hold her upright. "No, Cadya. No one wants you killed."

She flung her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder, her tears seeping through his shirt. He patted her head awkwardly, still tensed for the moment she would suddenly begin throttling him. "Cadya," he said, pulling her gently upright. "I need to go. Melory's in trouble."

"You won't give me back to my husband?" she sniffled.

He hid a wince. "Please don't run away," he said instead. "I have to help my apprentice."

"I can't run. You have to help me."

He disentangled her arms from around his neck and stood. "I will. Stay here."

She nodded, looking small and pale on the ground. Ransom went back up to the embankment. Melory was calling his name fitfully, her voice strained and on the verge of tears.

"I'm so sorry, Mel," he called down to her, scanning the slope for a way back up. A thin ridge of rock stuck up above the scree, zigzagging down from the top to the edge of the drop a few steps from Mel's branch. It would have to do. The runner had taken off with the saddlebags. He'd have to forgo the rope and look for the runners later.

"Ransom, I'm scared!" she said.

"Hang on, I'm coming down to get you." Ransom took a steadying breath and stepped gingerly over the edge. The loose gravel shifted beneath his weight, his foot sliding half a foot before it found purchase. "Mel," he said as he climbed slowly down the steep incline, "what's the time signature for the bridge of Moreta?"

"Eight twelve," she answered in a thin but steady voice.

"And the key at the shift to the refrain?" He slipped into their old routine of question and answer to keep her mind off the slippery scree, the drop waiting a few feet from her toes. He could see her shaking when he reached her, her arms quivering from clinging to the withered wood.

"I'm here, Mel," he said reassuringly, anchoring his feet in the gravel beside her.

"How are we getting back up?" she asked, her eyes glistening. Tears left shining trails through the dust coating her face. She sniffled and wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

"See that bit of rock?" Ransom pointed to the ridge. "I'll climb it to the top. How is your leg? Do you think you could get onto my back and hang on?"

Melory nodded. "I think I just twisted my ankle. It'll be all right."

"Good girl. Get on up. You've spent entirely too long on this branch." Ransom knelt down to let Melory get a grip around his shoulders. He hooked his arms beneath her knees and hoisted her up. Once she was settled, he began the questions again as he made his careful way to the ridge of rock.

"What happened?" he asked her quietly, the top of the embankment growing near.

"Caden attacked me," Melory said. "She went quiet for a while, then stole my knife and tried to throw me off without warning. It scared the runner and we both fell."

"I should never have sent you off alone with her. Forgive me."

"You couldn't have known this would happen," Mel replied. He felt her shudder against his back. "She's crazy. How did you get away from her husband?"

Ransom told Mel about his encounter with Thale and plan to return Cadya to them.

"Next time, let's take the caravan," Melory said into the back of his neck. "I'm fine without a sense of adventure, thank you very much."

"You know Mel," he replied, "I agree with you completely."

Dawn was just a few hours away by the time Ransom tracked down their runnerbeasts and got the three of them back in the saddle. Cadya rode with him this time, anything that remotely resembled a weapon packed on Melory's beast. Ransom guided them back downhill, his head light and his eyes heavy from fatigue. Cadya's head nodded into his shoulder as they rode. He had given her wine dosed with fellis, hoping she slept deeply. She drank so gratefully, so trustfully. He shook off the uneasy feeling that he had betrayed her. It would make handing her over to Thale that much easier.

The weight of Cadya's head on his shoulder sent pangs of regret through his chest. He shouldn't have left Ruatha River Hold so soon. It had been only a few months since the birth. Evina needed him, though she didn't often show it, and he had left. He couldn't go on. He would ride with Mel to Endling, wait with her for a southbound caravan, then ride back to Ruatha River by himself. The plan gave him new conviction and he blinked away the sleep weighing down his eyelids.

They met Thale and his companions where the stream turned east. The three men were nearly dead on their feet, their torches burned out. Cadya was still asleep, and didn't stir as Ransom lifted her off the runner into her husband's arms. Her face was peaceful in sleep, the lightening sky giving a soft glow to her skin. Thale cradled his wife, his body loosening with relief. They parted ways with few words.

Melory swayed in her saddle, her head nodding and jerking back up every few seconds. Ransom helped her down from her runner and they made camp by the stream's bend, asleep as soon as their heads hit the ground. After a few hours, brightening daylight roused them and they staggered back into the saddle to continue south.

Ransom and Melory reached Endling as the sun was toeing the horizon line that day. They were a sorry-looking pair. Melory's clothes were dusty and torn. A bruise colored Ransom's jaw and an egg-shaped lump had sprouted on the back of his head.

"Welcome to Endling," the Hold steward said, signaling stableboys to take their runnerbeasts. "You must be Harper Ransom."

"Yes. I didn't realize you were expecting us," Ransom said in surprise. Behind him, Melory groaned and muttered something about saddle sores.

"A message from Ruatha River Hold was drummed in for you earlier today." He pulled a slip of parchment from a pocket in his tunic and handed it to Ransom. "We've prepared rooms for you to bathe and rest."

"Thank you," Ransom said with a grateful sigh. "Did you hear that, Melory?"

"Do I get a bed?" she asked, hope lifting her dirt-stained face.

"Yes, but no sleeping furs." At Melory's confused expression, the steward broke into a smile. "I'm teasing you. All our beds come with furs. We'll even give you towels."

"Th-thank you?" Melory said, the task of processing a joke overwhelming her tired brain.

The steward patted her arm and gestured across the courtyard. "This way, please."

Ransom let Melory go on ahead, falling in behind her as he unfolded the drum message. Four words were printed on the paper.

_Coming early. Please shave._

He grinned and tucked the parchment into his pocket. He'd continue the journey Melory after all. He followed the steward into the Hold, trying to remember if he had packed his razor.


End file.
